UBS CEO Enjoys Full Backing, Chairman Says
Ralph Hamers looks increasingly set in his new job running UBS, even as the threat of criminal charges against him in the Netherlands over money laundering while at ING looms.
Ralph Hamers enjoys the full confidence of the entire board
of directors in his leadership of our company, UBS Chairman Axel Weber told
shareholders on Thursday according to prepared remarks for its investor
meeting. The Swiss bank handed Hamers the top job in November, only for the
Dutch banker to be hit with a revived criminal investigation into money
laundering at ING while he was running it.
UBS' plan was to poach Hamers, one of Europe’s most talented
banking innovators, to work his magic on the hidebound Swiss giant. For Weber,
who had hoped to fire the starting shot on UBS's update this year before
exiting himself in 2022, the criminal probe is an expensive self-own, as
finews.asia reported in January. He is now reportedly contemplating extending
his stay in Zurich.
UBS would find it difficult to sack Hamers under Swiss labor
law even if Dutch prosecutors end up charging Hamers, according to a Swiss
outlet traditionally used by people close to UBS' management to air their
views. This is because the bank knew the facts surrounding the money laundering
scandal when it hired him, through an outside assessment of Hamers.
The view was echoed by Weber on Thursday: The investigation
in the Netherlands that has recently been reopened into his activities as the
former CEO at ING does nothing, in our view, to change our previous assessment,
he told shareholders. He didn't address his own tenure ending in 2022; Hamers
skipped the issue altogether in his first address to UBS' investors.
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